


How to Cook (Easy! I Promise!)

by anon7912



Category: The Boyz (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Chefs, Chatting & Messaging, Christmas, Fluff, Implied Relationships, M/M, No Angst, Romance, alternate universe - youtuber
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:26:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28293798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anon7912/pseuds/anon7912
Summary: On September 16th at 3:22 PM, Jaehyun is tasked with the arduous task of cooking Christmas dinner for his entire friend group. The best part of it all is that he has literally never cooked! Not once!Luckily, YouTube - and its slew of videos made by chefs with the prettiest hands - is there to help.
Relationships: Bae Joonyoung | Jacob/Moon Hyungseo | Kevin, Choi Chanhee | New/Ji Changmin | Q, Lee Jaehyun | Hyunjae/Lee Juyeon
Comments: 43
Kudos: 215





	How to Cook (Easy! I Promise!)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yeoniejjang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeoniejjang/gifts), [kyupop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyupop/gifts).



> For my loveliest best friends,
> 
> Merry Christmas! Thank you for always making me smile and for bringing me more comfort than I ever thought I needed. I love you both to pieces. Also: SURPRISE [laughs maniacally]! I really hope you didn't see this coming.
> 
> To my lovely readers, 
> 
> Thank you all for sticking with me and reading my stuff. I hope this year ends for you with love and good cheer, but even if it doesn't, that's okay too. Know that I am sending you all every ounce of my love!
> 
> This is not a Christmas fic. This is a cooking fic that is, at best, Christmas-adjacent. It's silly and fluffy (watch, I'll turn my entire bibliography into JUST. TOOTH-ROTTING. FLUFF. I'll do it.) and I smiled a lot writing it even if it's objectively low on literary value. Enjoy!

September 16th.

At 3:22 PM, Jaehyun gets the text. By 3:23 PM, his phone is trilling with the waiting tone as he stands by, antsy, for his friends to pick up the group video call.

They answer just when the minute hand turns to 3:24 PM, and then Jaehyun is off—

“No. Absolutely- no, that’s the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. No.”

Jaehyun’s mouth is set in a flat line as he regards his friends whose faces are gathered in a neat collage around his phone screen. Five sets of eyes blink back at him, some mournful, some too amused for Jaehyun’s liking. 

“No,” he hisses again for effect. “I’m not fucking hosting Christmas- no. It’s not even Korean for fuck’s sake.”

No one says anything.

“Why can’t Chanhee host it again?” he demands, and his tone isn’t petulant — it _isn’t._

Chanhee’s gaze sweeps up, and it’s impassive like Jaehyun is the greatest fool alive. “We’re moving flats, like, three days before, Jaehyun-ah. I’m not cooking and hosting in the middle of a million boxes when you have a perfectly good apartment,” he says witheringly. Beside him, Changmin grins winningly.

Jaehyun chooses to ignore that grin and the grin-owner’s boyfriend’s deadpan tone, and turns instead to Kevin and Jacob. 

“Guys,” he says imploringly. “You’re the Christians, can’t you host?”

Kevin snorts and throws his arm around Jacob’s shoulder. “Yeah right, after a whole morning at church with my family? Not a chance, bud,” he smirks. 

At the bottom left of his screen, Haknyeon pipes up. “Aren’t you gonna ask me, hyung?”

Jaehyun huffs and pinches his nose bridge. “No, you're the baby, I’m not making you cook for everyone.” Haknyeon pumps his fist adorably with a ‘nice!’ too filled with gusto not to be endearing.

“Fuck you guys,” Jaehyun says to the rest of them. 

Jacob smiles placatingly and touches the screen with his forefinger like he’s stroking Jaehyun on the head. “It won’t be so bad! C’mon, it’s what- mid-September right now. You have three whole months to learn how to cook, or decide you’re making us all eat chicken for the birth of the Messiah — your call!”

Jaehyun curls his lip and makes a face at his best friend. “None of you care about me at all,” he declares.

Kevin blows him an air kiss and Chanhee stares expressionlessly back.

Jaehyun hangs up.

  
~~

  
September 18th. 

Jaehyun contemplates, not for the first time, whether he could reasonably force his friends to order fried chicken for their annual Christmas dinner. It’s not a terrible idea! They’ve been having traditional dinners for four years now— four years too many! And it’s not like Jaehyun has any god damn obligation to roast a whole ham the way Chanhee does every year just because Haknyeon loves ham. Think of the ozone, for god’s sake, and Haknyeon—

Jaehyun deflates when he thinks of the way Haknyeon’s face lights up every year when Chanhee brings out that rotund mass of honey glaze and meat. How is he supposed to let his favourite dongsaeng go _hungry_ on Christmas?

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Chanhee’s getting a fucking bookmark or something this year. Handmade, extra shitty.

Jaehyun grumbles as he pulls up YouTube, tossing his body to face the wall in bed. If he’s going to learn how to make a roast ham, or at least pork chops as a poor approximation of it, he’s going to have to start now.

He searches “how to cook”. It’s ostensibly kind of an absurd place to start, and he immediately gets a slew of comedy videos, each less than five minutes long, featuring all the ways not to cook. Jaehyun would laugh if he didn’t consider himself in sort of a dire situation.

Halfway down the page, he sees a clean white background with neat block-letter text and a pot of budae jjigae as the icon. It says ‘How to Cook Budae Jjigae - Korean Cooking for Beginners (Easy! I Promise!)’. The bracketed disclaimer makes Jaehyun smile a little, so he clicks on it, not expecting much.

The video loads to a clean granite countertop and a pair of hands leaning against it. The chef - clearly of the male species, based on the frankly absurd size of his palms (why are they so big? For what purpose? Jaehyun wonders a little insecurely at his own) - is only visible from the chest down, and he has a series of ingredients laid out in front of him in neat little glass bowls.

“Hi everyone, thanks for joining me today.” His voice is a soothing baritone, a little husky around the edges and between the syllables. Jaehyun feels himself relaxing a fraction at the sound of it. 

“For those of you who don’t know, this is the Catnap Chef — I’ll teach you to cook in as little time as a catnap takes,” he says - Jaehyun presumes at this point that the chef identifies as a man, but he’s willing to be proven wrong - and then the guy laughs a little self-deprecatingly. “Man, I gotta change that catchphrase, it’s not even true for most videos.” One hand disappears upwards as if he’s scratching his neck.

Jaehyun is kind of endeared by this Catnap fellow.

“Anyway, this is another episode of Korean Cooking for Beginners, we’ll be learning how to cook budae jjigae today,” Catnap says. “It’s one of the easiest things to cook and cheapest too, but it’s really warming I find, especially on a bad day.”

The camera pans to his counter to fully show all the ingredients already prepared - mise en place, according to the note on the screen, and Jaehyun frowns at the French words before turning his attention back to the video - and the chef runs through them quickly and efficiently. There are small cutaway shots of him chopping the spring onion and washing the enoki mushroom, but for the most part, prep seems sort of simple. It’s cheering, that’s for sure.

The camera shifts slightly then to the stove top which looks clean but lived in — scratches here and there, a worn cup full of cooking utensils right beside it. As Catnap sets a saucepan of water to boil, his soft voice fills Jaehyun’s earphones once more.

“I’m moving soon — to a new city. I’m kind of nervous if I’m honest, so I expect I’ll be making this a lot my first few weeks there to have a sense of normalcy or something.” He chuckles subduedly. “But that’s what this is so good for, y’know? And you can substitute ingredients for whatever you have on hand. I like glass noodles if I’m feeling like more texture than ramen, but ramen is always going to be the most comforting.”

Jaehyun scrolls down to check the date of the video’s posting and notes, with surprise, that it was only released a few days ago. As he scrolls back up, he wonders if the guy has moved yet, or if he’s still packing up his boxes, getting ready to leave.

There’s something placid and fluid about the way Catnap moves across the screen, emptying the bowls of crushed red pepper, gochujang, soy sauce and rice wine into the boiling water. It feels easy somehow, like cooking is nothing more than a negotiation of heat and ingredients — like it’s art. 

Jaehyun finds himself suddenly seized by the desire to cook, even though he’s touched his kitchen since moving in over a year ago maybe twice, but he reigns it in. He’s literally only made popcorn and sad excuses for pancakes that one time his one-night-stand stayed until morning- which, by the way, who the fuck does that? The audacity. 

He’s too busy reliving the injustice of that morning only to realise he’s missed a full three minutes of the video and quickly rewinds. 

The chef’s hands are gripped elegantly around a long pair of cooking chopsticks, the kind Jaehyun’s parents used to use when he lived at home, and he occasionally stirs the soup when he drops new ingredients in — kimchi, sausages, mushrooms, cabbage, spam, an endless stream of things that make Jaehyun’s mouth water. 

Sixteen minutes after he’d started the video (he had to adjust for the three minutes spent resenting his one night stand), Jaehyun is watching the Catnap Chef produce a very enticing bowl of budae jjigae to the camera. 

“Here it is, budae jjigae for beginners — this really is the easiest recipe you guys, I think this is a great place to start if it’s your first time cooking. As you know, my Twitter is linked below. Please feel free to DM me or tag me in any photos of the stuff you make; it always brightens my day. Thank you all for watching, and I’ll see you guys next time.”

Catnap waves briefly to the camera, one hand balanced against the counter’s edge to display startlingly muscled and veiny forearms before the video cuts to black. 

Jaehyun rubs at his face and stares at the replay button. 9:56 PM. He has time to watch a couple more videos he thinks.

He watches five more, all Catnap Chef, before he passes out with his phone balanced on his pillow.   
  


~~

  
September 26th. 

Jaehyun musters up the courage to peel off the stickers on the base of his pots that they came with when he got them over a year ago. _Non-stick, PFOA free, stainless steel!_ they proclaim proudly. There’s a photo of a chef masterfully tossing a bunch of bell peppers in the air right on the label.

For a second, he contemplates taking a picture of the balled up sticker and plastic wrapping next to his newly debuted saucepans and sending it to Catnap Chef on Twitter, but then he remembers that the guy has over a hundred thousand followers and definitely would not care for Jaehyun’s lame joke. 

He throws the stickers away, and the finality of the metal lid of the bin clanging against its body feels ceremonious somehow.

Cool. That’s enough for today.  
  


~~

  
September 30th. 

Jaehyun is trudging home from a ridiculously long day at the company - three coveted American companies went public today and monitoring the market was a fucking nightmare - when he notices.

He notices that the apartment unit next to his, the long-empty 10A, suddenly has boxes propping the door open. 

His hand hovers at his door with the key as he stares, and two seconds and a lot of grunting later, a head of red hair pops out of the doorframe.

The guy doesn’t notice him at first, busy tugging in one of the boxes as he is, until Jaehyun clears his throat. 

“Oh-!” the redhead stumbles back, blatantly caught off guard. Jaehyun sees a red mouth curled up at the ends part in shock, and pretty almond eyes go wide. The guy trips and bangs his elbow on the wall. “Fuck!”

Jaehyun can’t help but laugh a little incredulously at the slapstick. 

“Hey,” he says, to put the guy out of his misery. The downturned pout his new neighbour had been sporting as he nursed his afflicted elbow turns into a tentative smile. “I’m in 10B, Lee Jaehyun.” 

His neighbour bows. “Lee Juyeon! I- well, you can kinda see, I’m just moving in here,” he gestures sheepishly at the boxes. 

“Do you need help?” Jaehyun asks, more out of politeness than desire. Fourteen hours of spreadsheets and stock market predictions need to be sloughed off in the shower, pronto, but it seemed like the apt thing to offer. 

Juyeon smiles and shakes his head. “No need, you look like you’ve had a rough day.” Jaehyun’s eyebrows shoot up, and Juyeon’s face goes comically slack. “Not that- oh my god, not that you look like shit, I just- you know, it’s like, woah- ha! It’s 10:40 so you’ve probably been working for, what, thirteen hours minimum if you have a standard 9-5, not that that’s the only kind of job out there — alternate streams of income and all that! Say no to capitalism!”

“I work at Shinhan Financial,” Jaehyun says dryly, and Juyeon’s face turns the same shade as his hair.

White teeth bite hard into Juyeon’s bottom lip, and, puce-coloured and grimacing, he thumbs at his own flat. “I’m gonna go waterboard myself in the shower.”

Jaehyun fights to keep a straight face. “I don’t think it’s kosher to joke about waterboarding with all the crimes against humanity being committed by the Western governments the media is unearthing,” he points out, and Juyeon makes a strangled noise. “I’m kidding!” Jaehyun breaks. 

It’s probably kind of unkind to laugh in his neighbour’s face, but he’s feeling a little chaotic tonight with all the stimuli he’s been receiving from staring at numbers flash across the screen. “Sorry, I’m just fucking with you,” he snickers into his hand. 

Juyeon lets loose a noise that’s a cross between a choke and a ‘heh’. “ _Great,_ ” he wrenches out, pained. 

“See you around dude,” Jaehyun continues to chuckle as he lets himself into his own place. “Welcome to the building.”

Hilarity.  
  


~~

  
October 2nd.

Jaehyun has given himself two weeks since his first Catnap Chef video to allow himself to tentatively buy perishable ingredients. He’s not starting with budae jjigae — he’s not a madman. Instead, he’s picked ‘Can’t-Mess-Up Scrambled Eggs — Cooking for Beginners’. It was uploaded months ago, and the testimonials under the video in the form of short-hand comments all seem very happy with the results.

He’s watched it so many times he can almost recite the opening line word for word — “Hi guys, Catnap Chef here. I’d like to start and say the title of these eggs is a misnomer; if I’m being pedantic you could _technically_ mess up these eggs, but I really think you won’t!”

Catnap proceeds to spend the rest of the video explaining the do’s and don’ts of egg beating, cold butter first or last, when to season. “There are a couple schools of thought when it comes to when you season your eggs,” Catnap says, sounding amused. His voice, soft and unassuming as always, gets a little depth as if he’s holding in a laugh. 

“In theory, pre-seasoning your eggs denatures the proteins, makes them go grey and watery yada-yada, but I say eh!” He tosses a pinch of salt in. “You’re not cooking for the Michelin review board, if you wanna salt your eggs now, salt ‘em now.”

There’s nothing particularly funny about this discourse, Jaehyun thinks, but his mouth tugs into a smile anyway every time he watches it. It’s just amusing, seeing this grown man get tickled into laughter by the argument of when it’s appropriate to salt your eggs. 

When he gets home from work that night, tired and full from the takeout dinner he had at his desk, Jaehyun pulls the 4-pack carton of eggs out of his fridge. Stares at them. _Confronts his Everest_.

Jaehyun exhales. Show no fear! He cracks the first one lightly against his countertop - never crack your eggs on an edged surface, Catnap had instructed solemnly - before opening it up into his only large bowl.

No shell shards, a resounding success — the crowd goes wild. The next egg is slightly less successful, but Catnap’s got him with a hot tip - slightly wet fingers apparently help to fish out any stray pieces of shell that might’ve gotten in the bowl - and Jaehyun proceeds, undeterred. 

It’s only when the eggs are on the fire and Jaehyun has spooned in the optional creme fraiche and he has a yellow soup in a frying pan that he runs into trouble. The eggs are taking awfully long, and he doesn’t think things could go that badly if he just turned the heat up a little. 

One minute later, his delicate curds have turned into dry lumps and he’s turning the fire off with a yelp. “Oh for—” he grumbles. The eggs tip out into his plate and bounce, absolutely nothing like the “coagulated sunlight” Catnap had spoken about so reverently as his own golden heap spilled out over a thick slab of sourdough. 

Jaehyun surveys the damage. So it’s not great, and yeah, he’d be pissed if he, like, paid money for those eggs in a restaurant, but at 9 PM on a Friday night he really doesn’t think it’s a bad effort.

He snaps a photo, resists the urge to slap a filter onto it, and texts it to his group chat. Not a moment later, the verdict is in —

_Dude it’s 9, why’re you having eggs right now?_

_Lol, I guess they aren’t burnt? Congrats?_

_Ew_ ♥︎

_Nice hyung! Are we having eggs at Xmas tho?_

Jaehyun stares flatly at his phone. The audacity of these fuckers! After he’d toiled and studied — he doesn’t have to stand for this slander! He clicks out of the messaging app and pulls up Twitter instead, grinding his teeth the whole time. 

For a second, he’s caught off guard by the sight of his dusty Twitter profile. He hasn’t used it since - oh Jesus, his last tweet was in 2013 - he was a teenager obsessed with idols. Jaehyun lets himself get briefly distracted by the sight of his tweets replying to their official content posts, cringes at the effusive use of emoticons, and thanks the good Lord that he’d refrained from revealing any personal information about himself including a name or a picture.

When he pulls up @catnapchef’s profile, he notices that the guy had tweeted only a couple hours before. In less than a minute, a photo is being sent off into the ether and Jaehyun imagines Catnap’s phone lighting up with a new direct message notification somewhere across the world, or at least somewhere far away from him in Seoul. 

_Hey!_ he (or, @fantasticbaby999) had written along with his eggs. _I’ve been watching your vids for a while now and this was my first attempt at cooking. Please validate me! Kidding haha_

(He’s really, really not.)

When he doesn’t get an immediate response back, Jaehyun sighs and turns off his phone. He stares a little glumly at his eggs and pokes at them with his fork. Really, they’re a little grey around the edges and so, so dry looking, but he shoves them into his mouth anyway. 

To his surprise, a smile breaks out onto his face. So there’s a little too much salt, and the texture of the eggs on his tongue is vaguely akin to sandpaper, but it’s not half bad. 

Cheered, he swallows the rest down and starts running the water in the sink, only to nearly drop his plate a second later because—

Because from across his thin walls, he hears 10A, alias Lee Juyeon, let out a shout of alarm. Jaehyun shuts the tap and listens closely, ready to call the police if need be. 

“No no no no, fucking- what do I do, what do I do—” is the litany that comes drifting through. Jaehyun’s pulse jolts, tense and unsure, when suddenly a ringing smack like a shoe hitting a surface echoes from their shared wall. 

“Ew ew ew, oh god I’m so sorry, spider, ew,” Juyeon groans haplessly, and Jaehyun unclenches with a snort. Trust his neighbour, tall and reasonably well built if Jaehyun’s memory serves him well, to be terrified of something like a spider. He finishes off washing his plate, then sets about getting ready for bed.

It’s not until he’s settling into his duvet, face washed and teeth brushed, that his phone buzzes with a new notification. His heart jolts a little in excitement as he clicks on the pop-up. 

_DM from @catnapchef —_

_Hey!! It looks so good!! You killed it holy crap,  
_ _have all the validation_ _LOL_

The message is so earnest. It’s so earnest that Jaehyun’s face spontaneously cracks into a smile, and he doesn’t think twice about responding immediately.

 _Thanks haha I think they were a little dry but  
_ _for my first time touching a stove, I’m pleased_

He gets a cry laughing emoji in response before the text bubble appears again.

 _Congrats on your first time cooking! You  
_ _really did a great job! And thanks for  
_ _watching my videos and sending me this  
_ _photo, you really made my day!_

Jaehyun hardly thinks that’s true, not when Catnap has hundreds and thousands of followers, but it makes him beam anyway. He sends back a pleasant _thank YOU for making those videos,_ then shuts off his phone. 

He falls asleep thinking about how much a proper whisk and spatula cost.   
  


~~

  
October 6th.

Jaehyun is deeply reluctant to call himself obsessed - because that’s a really, really strong word, isn’t it? - but considers himself _loosely and reasonably invested_ in Catnap Chef. He’s tried watching a couple other cooking channels on YouTube, but the selection available in Korean is appallingly low, and the number of chefs he finds palatable within that small subsection even lower.

So he thinks it’s understandable that he grows a little concerned that Catnap hasn’t posted since September 26th, when Jaehyun knows his usual posting schedule is every Tuesday and Saturday.

Besides, he’s already made it through about sixty percent of Catnap’s videos, and a very small but real part of him is concerned Catnap won’t post ever again.

He assuages his fear by watching Catnap make salmon and furikake fried rice, the even pace of the man’s mellow tone filling every part of Jaehyun with comfort.   
  


~~

  
October 14th. 

Jaehyun remarkably gets home from work early and decides to spend the night, instead of gaming or watching shitty movies as he usually does, meal-prepping.

It’s a word he picked up from Catnap’s lunch series. Apparently, people do this thing where they batch prepare food ahead of time so that cooking throughout the week is simpler. It sounds absolutely bonkers to Jaehyun but when in Rome, apparently.

He thinks it’s good that he starts on a Wednesday. That way he only has to meal-prep for two subsequent lunches, which feels an awful lot less intimidating than meal-prepping for a whole week would.

Jaehyun carefully stirs flour and water and spring onions clumsily chopped in a bowl to make pajeon while his beef is marinating in a rather complicated mixture of soy sauce and numerous other ingredients Jaehyun had to buy just now.

When he’s done, his kitchen is covered in flour and the bulgogi beef is kind of tough from cooking it for too long, but he’s satisfied.

He snaps two pictures of his lunchboxes - new, too! This cooking bullshit had better pay off in the long term - then sends it to Catnap, wondering if maybe he won’t get a reply because of the extended hiatus the chef seems to be taking.

The online personality responds immediately.

 _Woah these look good! I like the char  
_ _you got going on the pajeon. Did you  
_ _meal prep earlier this week?_

Jaehyun leans against his counter, the scent of his lunchboxes making his stomach rumble. 

_Thanks! Nah I made them today. Had a  
_ _rare bit of spare time after work_

He throws in a smiley face for good measure. Not really expecting the conversation to progress any further than that, Jaehyun leaves his phone on the counter and sets about putting the containers away and cleaning the kitchen. It’s only an hour later, when he’s finally finished haphazardly folding his dish towel over the handle of the oven door, that he checks his phone.

To his surprise, Catnap had responded. 

_Nice! Does work keep you busy a lot?_

Jaehyun stares, nonplussed, at the message, then scrolls down to see the subsequent one.

 _Sorry, was that invasive? I’m asking  
_ _cause I’m trying to gauge interest in a  
_ _new segment for young working  
_ _professionals._

Ten minutes after that one —

 _…that was a lie I’m really sorry I  
_ _just felt like talking to someone tonight  
_ _omfg I’m so embarrassing_

An incredulous chuckle bursts out of Jaehyun. Catnap is a fucking _weirdo_ and Jaehyun is so, unbelievably endeared. His thumbs quickly tap out a response.

 _You’re good HAHA I just didn’t  
_ _think a celeb like you would want  
_ _to talk to a pleb like me so I put  
_ _my phone down._

_Yeah work’s kinda insane._

Almost immediately, the little text bubble pops up in the corner of Jaehyun’s screen.

_That sucks I’m sorry :(_

_It’s been shitty for me too_

Jaehyun’s eyebrows dart up in surprise. He had assumed Catnap’s YouTube channel was his full time job, and he says as much.

 _Damn that’s a bummer  
_ _Is that why you haven’t been  
_ _posting on your old schedule?_

The three dots appear, then disappear. A pause, where Jaehyun panics briefly that he’s totally offended Catnap and then- they appear again. 

_Ah…kind of? I won’t inundate  
_ _you but yeah, things have been  
_ _hard. I think. ? Yeah.  
_ _But I’ll have a video up this Sat!_

Jaehyun hurries to respond.

 _Wait I didn’t mean that to like  
_ _pressure you or anything pls  
_ _take car e of urself first omg_

Catnap reacts with a cry laughing emoji. _No stress, you didn’t at all_ , he says. _That was funny that your spelling fell apart there,_ he says. Jaehyun gapes at his screen.

 _Have a good night! Thank you  
_ _for making me laugh :)_

Jaehyun is more than a little embarrassed but types back an _argh goodnight sorry again !!!!!_ anyway.  
  


~~  
  


October 17th. 

Jaehyun logs onto YouTube out of a misplaced blind optimism that Catnap might post today and he is duly rewarded.

When he sees the new video pop up on his homepage, he immediately clicks it open, regardless of the fact that Jacob and Kevin are right there in his living room with him, messing around on their own phone and tablet respectively.

(They do this sometimes, on the weekend, because they’re all 26 and yeah, that’s not _that_ old but it’s old enough that they don’t always want to party all the way into Sunday morning like they used to.)

It’s a Cook With Me video, one of the ones Catnap occasionally films where he doesn’t say much, just cooks and interjects with little anecdotes about his day or what he’s making. The video is 37 minutes long, and Jaehyun plans on watching _all of it_.

Jaehyun notices that the setting of the video has changed, that the granite countertops and warm wood cabinets in all his previous videos have become pale marble and glass edged by beige wood. _Catnap must’ve already moved,_ he realises.

Around the five minute mark, when Catnap is quietly Julienning carrots for his bibimbap, Jacob pokes Jaehyun in the side with his socked foot.

“Whatcha watching?” he asks, as he peers curiously over. Jaehyun flushes a little but turns the laptop anyway.

Jacob’s eyes flicker across the screen for a moment before he turns to Jaehyun with an unreadable expression.

“What? You guys- remember when you _forced_ me to host Christmas? Well I had to learn how to cook and he’s- it’s soothing, okay, and I’m actually learning a lot- _this is your fault!”_ Jaehyun shrieks, face bright red.

Kevin snorts from the floor where he’s sat between Jacob’s knees. 

“He literally said nothing,” he points out. 

Jacob nods, a little smugly, and smiles. 

“Whatever.” (Jaehyun does _not_ harrumph.)

He refocuses on the video and watches as Catnap begins mixing the sauce for his meal. The chef is talking quietly about the late bloom of autumn in his city, and the way he talks about the recent drop in temperature makes Jaehyun think that maybe he’s in Seoul. There’s a pensive, almost melancholy quality to the man’s gentle monologue, and something about it makes Jaehyun’s chest twinge.

He hopes he’s okay.

Ten minutes later, Jacob has leaned in to rest his chin on Jaehyun’s shoulder, his eyes still glued to his own phone. Used to the abundance of physical touch involved in their friendship, Jaehyun does little more than angle his shoulder down to make it easier for the shorter man to relax against.

Another five minutes later —

“His voice has a really nice cadence to it.”

Jaehyun jerks in surprise, and realises belatedly that Jacob had leaned in to hear Catnap’s voice over Jaehyun’s earphones. 

Out of annoyance, Jaehyun bumps his hip into his friend. 

(He stoutly ignores the fact that he bumps slightly less hard than usual because he maybe sort of agrees that Catnap’s voice _does_ have a really nice cadence.)  
  


~~

  
October 24th.

No video from Catnap on Tuesday, and certainly none today, but Jaehyun successfully roasts potatoes for the first time and it’s the closest he’s gotten yet to making something viable for Christmas dinner.

He invites his friends over, and they all coo excitedly for once about his cooking.

(The last few times he’d sent them his meal prep boxes and bastardised versions of Catnap’s dak gomtang, they had been _flagrantly_ unsupportive in Jaehyun’s opinion.)

So yes, he didn’t have the strength of mind to make anything other than roast potatoes - rosemary is hard to wrangle! And making a minced garlic butter to go with everything? Please! - and yes, his friends end up having to order a whole tonne of jeyuk bokkeum and kimbap to actually have a meal and not just _potatoes_ for dinner, but Jaehyun considers it a success. 

By midnight, Catnap still hasn’t posted a video, but he responds to Jaehyun’s messaged picture of his potatoes with a 

_You did an amazing job._

_Also, thanks for always DMing  
_ _me these. Not to get sappy or  
_ _weird but it really makes my day :)_

Jaehyun wants to ask if everything’s alright, if he can somehow give the other man some sliver of the comfort Catnap’s videos have brought him, but he doesn’t. 

He just says _of course, and really, again, thank /you/.  
  
_

~~  
  


October 26th.

Jaehyun gets home late that night. He pauses at his door, key poised by the lock and listens —

He listens to the poignant instrumental music - something sad and whispering along the strings of a violin - float out of the crack between his neighbour’s door and doorway. The scent of kimchi - or is it budae? - jjigae has filled the hallway, and it doesn’t take a genius to guess where it’s coming from.

Since he moved in, Jaehyun has nary seen a peep out of the other man. He must work intense hours too, because once, when Jaehyun had glanced out his window, he saw Juyeon trudging back in a rumpled suit and professional looking backpack. It had been a Saturday, and the red-haired man had looked miserable. 

It’s Seoul. No one asks too many questions of their neighbours, no one lends each other cups of sugar. 

It’s Seoul, but Jaehyun wonders if 10A, Lee Juyeon, is okay.

~~

  
October 27th.

The notification comes midday, when Jaehyun’s eyes are going bleary from staring at his screen - he’ll buy blue light glasses when they’re medically proven to help, okay? - and the stock market looks more like little pixels than the indomitable apparatus of capitalism it actually is.

His phone buzzes, and Jaehyun looks down at it, expecting a text from Chanhee to grab lunch at their preferred sushi restaurant.

Instead, it’s — 

‘Cantonese-style Congee - Comfort Food with Catnap’

Jaehyun’s mouth falls open in surprise, and he quickly darts a look around the office space to see if anyone is watching. As surreptitiously as he can, he pockets his headphones and slips out of the room.

The only single bathroom, usually made for mothers who need a space to change their newborns - but the misogynist fucks who run HR haven’t hired a woman whose biological clock has so much as ticked in the last decade - is thankfully empty. Jaehyun locks himself in and settles onto the closed toilet seat.

He never takes breaks, he rationalises to himself. He’s a cog in this company, and one that hasn’t taken a single day off this year, no less. He’s allowed to watch a damn cooking video in the bathroom if he so chooses.

The video opens to golden hands propped against marble countertops, and Jaehyun is briefly disconcerted by the sight of an entirely different kitchen when he suddenly remembers that Catnap had moved houses like he’d mentioned.

“Hey everyone, thanks for joining me today,” Catnap murmurs. Jaehyun wonders if it’s just him who hears the malaise in Catnap’s tone, so unlike the mild, sunny warmth he’d grown accustomed to after a month straight of watching the man’s videos.

“I know I’ve been away for a while, so first of all, thank you for your patience. It’s been-” Catnap pauses here and scratches idly at his forearm. “It’s been a weird couple weeks, if I’m being honest. I moved, like I said, but…” The hand at the man’s forearm moves upwards like he’s rubbing his mouth or neck. “I don’t know. Sorry, I’m sure you guys aren’t interested in this.”

Catnap’s self-deprecating laugh, his certainty that his viewers don’t come for anything but the recipes and the food, makes Jaehyun’s throat tighten a fraction. 

“Damn, I forgot to do my intro,” Catnap chuckles, a little humourlessly. “For anyone who’s a first-timer here, sorry that this is your first video, please go watch some of the others, I swear I’m more exciting there. I’m Catnap Chef, I’ll teach you to cook in as little time as a catnap takes.”

Catnap pauses again and this time, when he chuckles, it’s a little warmer, almost as if saying his intro had somehow suffused some of his old serenity back into himself. 

“Today I’m making Cantonese-style congee,” he says, and video scope changes to a full view of his ingredients. 

“As many of you know, I am _technically_ a classically-trained chef, which is why I have no qualms about calling myself as such.” - Jaehyun is briefly distracted by the fact that someone who seems reasonably young and who makes videos on the internet uses ‘qualms’ and ‘as such’ in the same breath - “After culinary school, I travelled all around Asia trying different foods and meeting all sorts of incredible people. At that point, my parents had asked me to come home and pursue an actual graduate degree, so it was my last summer to do something I really loved.”

The man’s voice is quiet and tinged with regret when he goes on to point out which ingredients are what. Unlike his usual videos, Catnap seems to share more today about himself, and it feels closer to talking to a friend and interjecting with notes about cooking than it does the other way around.

“Moving’s been weird. I- well, everyone around me was really excited when I got my job in the capital-” He’s in Seoul, Jaehyun realises with a start. “-so I thought I should be excited too, but it’s been really hard. I never - here, see this black line on the spine of the shrimp? You’re going to want to take that out if I tell you what it really is, but it’s also not a big deal if you eat it - I never realised how much this channel and you guys all mean to me until I was suddenly stuck at a desk job.”

Here, Catnap finishes preparing the shrimp and the camera moves to the stove. 

“I use seafood stock - in Guangdong where I picked this recipe up, they eat a lot of seafood, but really any stock will do - and once it’s at a boil…” he trails off to let the golden broth bubble up. “Like so, you can toss your marinated rice in.”

Catnap stirs, leaning one hand on a safe part of the stove. “Those two weeks in China were probably one of the happiest times of my life,” he murmurs, large hand still wielding the wooden spoon with an appalling amount of grace. “Sorry, I know that sounds sappy and I have three quarters of my life still left to live, but still. You just know with things like that. Y’know?” He laughs, sotto voce and husky.

Jaehyun thinks it isn’t sappy at all.

After fifteen minutes and two reasonably sore ass-cheeks from the unyielding toilet seat cover, Jaehyun stands up.

Catnap had presented his bowl of congee, beautiful and piping hot with a garnish of spring onion and niboshi - “for pan-Asian flavour!” Catnap had said - then sighed before setting his bowl down.

“I’m sorry if I seemed down or less upbeat than usual today,” he had apologised. Jaehyun had wanted to shake him for apologising for something as absurd as having an off-day. “I really wanted to get this video out for you, and it’s actually made me feel a lot better, so thank you. Thank you for always sticking with me and for supporting me. And for those of you who take the time to DM me your own dishes — I’m really, unspeakably grateful for you, too.”

Jaehyun had stared for a while at the white replay button, contemplating the man with a voice like orange blossom honey and the sadness in it that makes Jaehyun’s chest hurt. It’s absurd to get so attached to an internet personality, he knows. It’s ridiculous, when all he wanted to do was learn how to make a roast chicken and maybe some potatoes, and instead he knows Catnap’s favourite buttermilk pancake recipe he picked up from a trip to Texas, how to chiffonade basil, and the fact that Catnap likes to put dried violets in his evening tea.

It’s all very ridiculous, but Jaehyun pulls up Twitter anyway and texts someone who is more or less a stranger a message.

 _Hey, I saw your new video. It was  
_ _really, really good, although tbh  
_ _you have not sold me on thousand  
_ _year old egg yet._

 _I hope this isn’t like insanely intrusive  
_ _but I hope you’re okay. I love your  
_ _videos but you should know your  
_ _viewers definitely care about you as  
_ _a person too._

_Or at least I do._

Jaehyun is just about to sit down at his desk, after having fielded away a vile “Hyung, huge dump?” from his junior coworker, Eric, when his phone buzzes once more.

_DM from @catnapchef —_

_Hey! Oh woah I’m surprised you’re up  
_ _Thanks for saying that, I’m  
_ _embarrassed to admit how much  
_ _better that made me feel_

He’s thrown in a bashful, sweating emoji that makes Jaehyun smile, even as he gazes bewilderedly at the message.

 _Haha yeah, course I’m up! I’m in  
_ _Seoul (like you? I think?)_

The text bubble appears immediately, and Jaehyun’s heart does a little two-step jig.

 _Oh shit really? Yeah I’m in Seoul!  
_ _I figured when you sent me those eggs  
_ _at midnight or something that you were  
_ _an expat living abroad_

Jaehyun huffs out a laugh and responds.

 _No….just……cooking……for the first time  
_ _At night  
_ _I can’t help but feel like you’re judging me  
_ _When I had expressly asked you for  
_ _validation_

Catnap types back, just as quickly, and Jaehyun almost forgets that his company has a strict no-phones-at-the-desk policy.

 _Sorry!!! No judgement!!! Just like I have  
_ _no judgement for your username or  
_ _tweets from 2013.  
_ _VIPs forever [explosion emoji]_

“Hyung, CFO is walking in,” Eric hisses over his monitor and Jaehyun startles violently. As quickly as he can he types out a message before pocketing his phone.

 _Fuck off hahaha I was 13 and in love  
  
_ _Shit gotta go  
  
_ _Also what I meant to say earlier was  
_ _you should do whatever you love and  
_ _if your job is making you miserable then  
_ _fuck them bc u deserve 2 be happy  
_ _Ok gtg by e!!!!!!  
  
_

He doesn’t have time to check his phone until much later — not after the CFO berates them all about the importance of diligence for an hour. When Jaehyun gets home, soothing classical music is spilling out of apartment 10A, and his heart feels full because Catnap has responded _you’re right, I really needed to hear that. Thank you for being such a good viewer and friend (? Maybe?).  
  
_

~~

  
October 31st.

Jaehyun and his friends, for all the fact that they’re 26 and don’t party like they used to, love Halloween. Part of it is on Jacob and Kevin who brought obscene frat culture to their otherwise tenderly innocent friend group, but Changmin is just as much to blame at this point. 

The choreographer insists on making jello shots every year, and Jaehyun’s quite certain he’s been steadily increasing the amount of vodka that goes into them with the intention of seeing just how fucked up his friends can get. 

So October 31st comes, and Jaehyun doesn’t exactly have time to watch Catnap’s new video because he’s too busy using Halloween as a practice round for making food for six people. He’s got tteokbokki (Catnap’s recipe, although Jaehyun took the initiative to arrange them to look like severed fingers), kimbap (Catnap again and decorated to look like snakes), and chocolate pudding dressed up with crushed biscuits to look like a graveyard (an American recipe, and the YouTube subtitles were heinous but Jaehyun managed). 

It’s a resounding success, all in all. Chanhee’s tongue is bright blue from the jello shots, Changmin is suspiciously sober but has his cheeks full of seaweed rolls, Haknyeon and Kevin are dancing ass-first between bites of rice cake and Jacob is staring at his boyfriend with a spoonful of pudding held salaciously to his mouth.

And Jaehyun is wasted.

So it’s all, very, very good.

When he wakes up on November 1st, he sees that Catnap has posted a new video titled “Celebratory Cheesecake - New York style!”

In his message inbox, Jaehyun has a couple little grey squares of text waiting for him 

_I…fuck haha this is insane but  
_ _I quit my job. I’m gonna do  
_ _YouTube full time. Is that insane?_

 _Oh my god it’s totally insane.  
_ _Whatever, I feel alive haha holy shit_

 _Thank you, again. Really, truly, thank  
_ _you!!! Don’t get too fucked up on  
_ _Halloween, drink lots of water!_

Oh yeah — Jaehyun and Catnap have been texting throughout the week, which is why Catnap knows of Jaehyun’s friend group’s penchant for alcoholism on this blessed holiday. And now, Catnap has quit his shitty job and is doing what he loves, and Jaehyun is really hungover and really fucking _happy_.

So yeah, it’s all very, very good.   
  


~~

  
November 7th.

Catnap releases a dakgalbi recipe video and Jaehyun feels like he maybe has the skills to actually do it right then and there. 

His tongue burns from an accidental overshot of chilli flakes in the marinade, but Catnap DMs him back and says it looks _fucking amazing_.

  
~~

  
November 13th.

Jaehyun has the shittiest day he’s had in a long time. 

The coffee machine has a mini-explosion at work and stains his white shirt. His boss hisses at him furiously right before a client meeting for looking sloppy and forces Jaehyun to give the presentation up to another guy - a smarmy little asshole who Jaehyun has disliked from day one - even though Jaehyun was the one who had spent countless hours making the slide deck. 

Then after the client meeting, he gets berated again for lack of professionalism. Chanhee cancels on him for dinner, full of regret that Jaehyun doesn’t have the energy for, because he and Changmin are having a shakedown with their landlord.

When he gets home, he slams his front door shut. He’ll be embarrassed about his lack of control later, but he’s so fucking done right now.

Jaehyun tries to cook, something easy and comforting like kimchi fried rice, but even then, nothing goes smoothly. When he accidentally knocks the frying pan off the stove, the clatter of the metal against wooden floorboards ringing with a belligerent echo, Jaehyun shouts.

_“Fuck!”_

He stares at the mess on his floor. “Stupid fucking, bullshit of of a day, fucking _fuck!”_

He turns off the stove and slumps to the floor. It’s not even that he really wanted to eat dinner, not when he had a huge lunch and picked on Eric’s dosirak before leaving work. It’s just that he had been hoping the cooking would be something that would go _right_ in his clusterfuck of a day. 

Apparently not.

A moment later, a tentative knock touches his door.

“Hey,” a voice calls. “Hey, is everything okay?” 

Lee Juyeon must not be from Seoul, Jaehyun sighs to himself, otherwise he’d know not to knock on his neighbour’s doors and ask asinine but sweet questions like ‘is everything okay’. Not quite ready to show his face, Jaehyun doesn’t respond for a second.

Juyeon’s voice sounds a little panicked when he knocks again. “Er okay, if you need help just scream really loudly. Or like, kick something over. I took taekwondo in school, I can—”

“I’m okay,” Jaehyun calls, if only to prevent his door from getting kicked down. “Really, I’m- yeah. I’m okay. Thanks for asking.”

A brief moment of silence presses against the two of them, separated by a door and a wall. “Alright, if you’re sure,” Juyeon says softly. “It’s okay not to be, y’know?”

Jaehyun doesn’t want to reply.

“Let me know if you need anything. I’m just a doorstep away.” 

His voice is gentle and kind, but Jaehyun just wants to curl up and sleep the day away.  
  


~~

  
November 14th.

_Hey how did your presentation go? :)_

Jaehyun stares at his phone. He hadn’t texted Catnap back yesterday after the travesty that was his day, and now, his new friend - they call each other that now - is checking up on him.

He sighs and thumbs out a response. 

_I didn’t end up getting a chance to  
_ _present. It was actually a really shit  
_ _day if I’m being honest :/_

A few minutes later, Catnap replies.

 _Fuck I’m sorry :( Want to talk  
_ _about it?_

And Jaehyun’s never been the kind of person to talk things out, has always preferred to work through his feelings alone, so he says _I’m okay, dw about me_ and shuts his phone. It’s a Saturday, thankfully, and Jaehyun has no plans so he pulls on some running shoes and jogs downstairs. 

It’s chilly now, winter having settled properly into Seoul, and his breath comes out in puffs of mist before his face. He’s about to take off on his run when he sees 10A, Juyeon, come shuffling out the building door.

The red haired man is sleep-soft, his eyes a little puffy around the corners even though they brighten when he sees Jaehyun. 

“Hey neighbour,” Juyeon waves. “Good on you for running in this weather.” He laughs gently, and Jaehyun is startled to hear how soft and hazy it sounds, like a fire crackling on the hearth. 

He smiles back. “Yeah, felt like being active. What’re you up to?” 

Juyeon grins and pulls out a couple of folded up cloth grocery bags from his sweatpants. “Running to the store. D’you need anything?” he asks.

Jaehyun snorts disbelievingly. Ah, this kid! Definitely not from Seoul originally then. “No,” he chuckles. Juyeon seems like he’s about to make a graceful exit when Jaehyun stops him. Surprising himself as much as he must be surprising Juyeon, he asks, “You’re not from here?”

Juyeon’s mouth falls open, and Jaehyun’s gaze darts briefly to the perfect set of white teeth that peek out. Cute. 

“Ah, yeah, I grew up in Jinju actually,” he admits. His hand sneaks up to rub at his mouth, at Jaehyun notices - startled - that Juyeon’s hand is enormous and broad against the red of his lips. Something like familiarity tickles at the back of his mind, but then Juyeon goes on, “I moved out here for a job originally but that didn’t quite work out.” 

Jaehyun makes a sympathetic face and nods. “Sorry, that sucks,” he starts to say, but Juyeon hurriedly corrects him. 

“No, no! I’m actually really happy — I found something even better. Or- not found, more like went back to. Ah sorry, I’m keeping you, you should go on your run before you freeze,” he says affably before waving. “I’ll see you around?”

Jaehyun snorts again, tickled by Juyeon’s soft-spoken tumble of words. 

“See ya,” he replies, hand poised in the air. Juyeon shuffles off down the street, and only then does Jaehyun notice that the man is wearing thick-soled yellow house slippers. 

He laughs to himself about it for the good first part of his run.

Later that night, when he’s home and comforted by Chanhee and Haknyeon bringing dinner over to his flat, Jaehyun tucks himself into bed with his phone.

To his amazement, he notices that Catnap had only uploaded a video an hour or so prior, instead of his usual 4PM KST upload time. Jaehyun clicks open the video without reading the title, prepared to be lulled to sleep.

“Hi guys, thanks for joining me today. I know this video is a little later than it usually is, but I had an emergency change of plans.” Catnap pauses, and though Jaehyun can’t see his face, something about the man’s twitching fingers seems almost nervous. “I…know that many of you. Mm. I know that everyone has bad days sometimes, god knows I do, and because you guys have been such- such a comfort to me, I wanted to make this video for you all, for when you have bad days.”

He pauses meaningfully, and Jaehyun’s heart clenches in his chest. 

“So these are the things I like to make when I’m having a crappy day — there’s a 10 minute tofu jjigae for immediate warmth and a longer Taiwanese beef noodle soup if you want to lose yourself in cooking.”

The video is almost forty minutes long, and it’s way past midnight when Jaehyun finishes it. Even so, a small, wild part of him hopes that Catnap is awake when he texts him

 _I just finished your video  
_ _It was so so so good  
_ _Yesterday was the worst but today  
_ _is better and your video was the  
_ _nicest way to end the night_

Nervously, because a swell of something warm and sticky is filling every part of him, sweet like Catnap’s words and tender like his dulcet voice, Jaehyun tacks a red heart emoji on at the end.

Not a moment later, the bubble of three dots appears, and Jaehyun feels bizarrely like he’s thirteen again and waiting for his crush to show up at the school dance.

 _I’m so glad :)  
_ _I…ugh I hope this doesn’t sound weird  
_ _but I mostly made it for you_

And, like an afterthought, like maybe he was nervous about sending it too, a red heart comes in a separate message.

Jaehyun has to bite his lip hard to keep the hopeless grin from stretching across his face.  
  


~~

  
November 22nd.

Jaehyun can feel his friends getting irritated at him for constantly checking his phone. It’s an agreement they all made ages ago to never have their phones on the table when they go out for dinner, but Jaehyun can’t help it because Catnap is telling him about how cooking and computer programming - his “useful” degree - share similar fundamental skills. 

“Tsk.”

Jaehyun looks up guiltily to see Chanhee regarding him with ill-concealed irritation. “Is that work again? Tell them to fuck off, you work hard enough,” he grumbles, and Jaehyun reaches over the hotpot table to fondly grip the pale man’s hand.

“No, it’s just—”

“Woah who are you _texting?”_ Changmin asks beside him. A tiny hand grabs his phone before Jaehyun can stop him and then Jaehyun’s mobile is being shoved under four noses while Haknyeon scrambles around the round table to see too.

“Who is this, Jaehyun-ah?” Jacob asks curiously. 

“You guys text a lot,” Changmin intones disbelievingly. “You never- hey! You said you missed my text last night cause you were watching a movie but you texted _this_ person!”

He’s terribly indignant and Jaehyun is caught between feeling guilty and cross with his friends for invading his privacy with such outrageous disregard.

“Stop that,” he hisses instead, grabbing his phone back. “You guys are such nosy fucks.”

Kevin grins at him with his chin propped up on one elegant hand. “Is this someone you’re seeing?”

Jaehyun goes hot and then cold. “No! He- I—”

Jacob frowns, gears turning in his head before his gaze lights up in recognition. “Wait, is that that chef guy you were watching, like, a month ago? Do you guys talk now?”

Five pairs of eyes swing to Jacob and then back to Jaehyun in rapid succession. 

Jaehyun fights valiantly to keep the flush off his cheeks. “No! I mean- yes! Technically! But we’re not _seeing_ each other, I don’t even know his real n- why are you guys so _fucking invasive?”_

Chanhee reaches across the table and lays cool fingers against Jaehyun’s palms that are growing rapidly moist.

“Does he live in Seoul? You know you can invite him to Christmas or anything else right?” 

Jaehyun deflates and squeezes Chanhee’s hand back glumly.

“Yeah, I know. I just- he’s anonymous on the internet y’know? And I don’t know if he even _wants_ to meet me in person. Even as friends! I don’t- I dunno. Ugh,” he huffs out. 

His friends, well-versed in his proclivity for silent processing, tactfully change the subject. Even so, Haknyeon leans a little closer to Jaehyun for the rest of the meal, and Changmin and Kevin keep adding extra pieces of beef to his bowl over the course of the night.  
  


~~

  
November 30th.

Jaehyun is tacking up Christmas tree decals and tinsel on his doorway when Juyeon comes ambling down the hallway. He has a backpack slung over his broad shoulders and two bags full of groceries in his hands so he jerks his chin at Jaehyun in an approximation of a wave.

“Hey!” Jaehyun greets happily. Christmas season always puts him in a good mood. He knows it’s annoying, he does, but whatever — he’s a grinch 334 days out of the year, he’s allowed to be as chipper as he wants every December.

Juyeon smiles and eyes Jaehyun’s decorations with no small amount of amusement. “Hi,” he responds. “I like your tinsel.”

Jaehyun grins. “Thanks, I’m going for subtlety this year,” he says, which makes Juyeon snort. “Are you looking forward to Christmas?”

The merriment on Juyeon’s face becomes subdued and he shrugs. “No one to celebrate with,” he replies ruefully. “I’m uh, guessing you do?”

Jaehyun is caught off guard for a second before he remembers that most of South Korea celebrates Christmas as a couple’s holiday. Maybe it’s been too many years of celebrating it Kevin and Jacob’s way, as a holiday for family — after all, they’ve been doing it for almost a decade, ever since they all met in university when those two were just two Canadian oddballs who decided to come study in Seoul.

Jaehyun smiles and shakes his head. “No, just having friends over for dinner actually. Want some of my tinsel? I have extra,” he offers. Juyeon’s eyes crinkle prettily, and Jaehyun briefly wonders how someone so handsome could be alone at any point, let alone Christmas, but then the red-haired man shakes his head.

“No need, you keep it. Your door looks really nice,” he compliments. “Have fun! I’ll look forward to the finished thing.”

Jaehyun beams beatifically before waving his neighbour off and goes right back to decorating.

  
~~

  
December 10th.

In the middle of texting Catnap before bed, Jaehyun suddenly realises _it’s December._ It’s December and he needs to make Christmas dinner for six in exactly fourteen days. 

Holy shit. He’d been so busy trying to learn the basics of cooking - and really, with Catnap’s help, he’s gotten truly quite good - to remember to look up any recipes that he can actually use on Christmas day.

One look at Catnap’s channel reveals an alarming deficit of Christmas content, and Jaehyun texts him as much.

 _Hey do you by any chance have any  
_ _Christmas recipes under your belt?_

 _That you might want to share with  
_ _your endearing and adorable internet  
_ _friend? Because you care so much  
_ _about his wellbeing?_

Catnap responds — 

_Haha I wasn’t going to make any but  
_ _I can rustle something up! Any  
_ _particular reason?_

Jaehyun smiles as he stretches his tired muscles along the length of the mattress. Work has been arduous recently, but somehow, even though winter is bitingly cold this year and his boss has been pushing their team extra hard to meet the company’s year-end goals, Jaehyun is happy.

Deeply, genuinely happy.

 _I have to make Christmas dinner for me and my friends_ , he writes back. _And no pressure if you’re busy obviously, I was just wondering!_

A moment later, Catnap replies with a series of thumbs up emojis. 

_You got it! I’ve never really celebrated  
_ _Christmas but anything for you :)_

Jaehyun’s mouth falls open and he sits up abruptly in bed. Unsure how to respond with his pulse trying to batter its way out of his ventricles as it is, he tries to sound as neutral as possible.

_Thanks haha you’re the best_

He pauses before typing out the next line —

 _I’d never want to make you uncomfortable  
_ _but  
_

 _I almost wish I could invite you to Christmas  
_ _dinner. I’d love to meet you in person  
_ _someday_

His knuckles are white with how hard he’s gripping his phone as he watches the text bubble appear then disappear several times over. 

Finally it buzzes. 

_I’d love to meet you too someday  
_ _Soon?_

Jaehyun falls asleep that night to a thrum in his veins and his phone by his pillow, almost like keeping that darkened LED screen close to him is like some semblance of keeping a certain, unnamed chef close by instead. 

Just as he’s drifting off, the sound of Christmas music comes floating faintly into his room. He’s not quite sure, in part because his neighbour’s flat has been conspicuously silent all December, but Jaehyun almost thinks the music is coming from apartment 10A.

Sleepily and in passing, he wonders if the Christmas spirit has come to Juyeon’s home after all.  
  


~~  
  


December 15th. 

Catnap releases a recipe titled ‘Easy Sage and Onion Stuffing — A Catnap Christmas Part 1’.

Jaehyun watches with a red face and sweaty palms as Catnap does his usual intro, fingertips gliding effortless circles in the air before he stops and says haltingly, “This is for…someone who’s recently become kind of important to me. I hope he - and you all - find a way to make Christmas about your loved ones, even if you’re not with someone right now.”

Jaehyun is seized by the urge to text Catnap then and there, but he only has enough presence of mind to send a heart emoji. 

He gets one back one minute and thirty six seconds later.  
  


~~

  
December 24th.

Jaehyun wakes up on December 24th much like he imagines Olympians or marathon runners wake up the morning of their big day: with gusto, fear, and an entire gut full of determination. 

The morning begins well. He texts Catnap and his friends, then prepares for battle. The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting! Or any other quote from Sun Tzu’s Art of War. Before noon sees Jaehyun defrosting the ham at room temperature, mincing garlic, chopping vegetables and quartering baby potatoes.

By noon, the ham is no longer bone-cold and Jaehyun stops to hurriedly shove a packet of instant ramen down his gullet. Catnap has texted him a series of motivational gifs, ranging from cute to ridiculous, and all of them make Jaehyun grin like a fucking idiot.

At 3PM, he begins the arduous process of mixing the marinade and carefully scoring the ham. (Catnap hadn’t found the time to make a whole video on ham preparation, but had texted him a series of instructions - one of which was to buy a ready-to-eat ham to simply glaze and finish in the oven - that Jaehyun is endlessly grateful for.)

He whisks and melts, glazes and scores, rubs and pats. 

When the clock strikes 4PM sharp, the ham goes into the oven and Jaehyun sets about tossing the vegetables. 

At 5PM, just when he’s about to put the turnips and wild carrots in, he gets a text. And then another. And then another. By 5:02 PM, his phone is once again trilling with the waiting tone as he stands by, antsy, for his friends to pick up the video call.

“You’re fucking kidding me right? You’re absolutely fucking joking,” he hisses furiously the second they do.

Two sets of eyes gaze back at him mournfully. 

“We—”

“You asked me to host, and now you’re bailing?” Jaehyun asks. “Are you fucking kidding?”

Changmin blinks forlornly and Chanhee winces. “We’re so, so, _so_ sorry, Jaehyun hyung,” he says. “The moving company accidentally sent all of our boxes to a storage unit and if we don’t go get them out now, they’ll be locked in there till the New Year. Apparently the owner’s American and doesn’t work over the Christmas holiday.”

It’s almost a word-for-word repeat of what his and Changmin’s texts had said, but Jaehyun’s heart sinks anyway. 

“Guys,” he says softly. “I- look, sorry, I’m not trying to guilt you, really. I was just- looking forward to all of us getting together.”

Changmin’s bottom lip juts out and the young man looks so painfully, upsettingly sorry that Jaehyun doesn’t have the strength to be visibly angry any longer.

“We’re really sorry, hyung,” Changmin whispers. “We’ll make it up to you! We’ll be there bright and early tomorrow morning! With more tinsel! And cake!”

It’s a valiant attempt and Jaehyun appreciates it. He exhales heavily, then forces a smile onto his face and nods. “Sure. That sounds good Changmin-ah.”

Chanhee checks his watch and sighs. “Fuck, sorry, we really should get going. It’s kind of a long drive and we have to get there before seven…” he trails off.

Jaehyun waves his hand at the screen. “Sure sure, let me know how it goes. Good luck you guys.”

When his phone turns to black, he tries to rally his spirits. It’s okay! Kevin and Jacob will have enough energy to make up for the two missing bodies, and watching Haknyeon eat is always such a pleasure. Jaehyun grimaces and goes back to his tray of vegetables. 

He should’ve known better than to be optimistic.

At 5:45, just after he takes the ham out to rest, he gets a call. Jacob’s voice is whispered and frantic over the line when Jaehyun picks up.

“Jaehyun, we’re so fucking sorry but- wait, Kev shh! We’re still at Kevin’s parents’ house - their pastor just found out his wife was cheating on him the whole time and he’s in their living room sobbing his eyes out - there’s no way we can leave for the next couple hours,” he whisper-shouts.

“He only just got to the beginning of ‘he should’ve known all along’,” Kevin adds hysterically. “We’re so sorry hyung, I don’t think we’ll make it tonight.” 

A big part of Jaehyun wants to scream or throw something.

“So you guys aren’t coming?”

His voice sounds defeated even to his own ears.

“No,” Jacob says mournfully. “I’m so sorry Jaehyun-ah, especially after you worked so hard on the dinner and with learning how to cook.”

What else is there to say? Jaehyun sighs and squeezes his eyes shut. “It’s fine. Guess me and Haknyeon will just eat ourselves into a coma.”

There’s a hideous, ugly pause and Jaehyun knows instinctively what’s coming next.

“Ah, uh, hyung? Chanhee didn’t tell you?” Kevin sounds nervous as he asks the question.

When Jaehyun doesn’t immediately respond, he goes on. “Haknyeon’s sister just got engaged. He’s on a flight home to Jeju right now — Chanhee and Changmin were supposed to tell you. I…guess they dropped the ball on that one.”

Jaehyun looks woodenly back. “Just a little bit.”

They’ve reached an impasse, where none of the three of them want to be the first to hang up but there’s clearly not much else to say. Jaehyun can feel Jacob and Kevin’s guilt rolling off of them in waves over his speakerphone and it makes him feel worse, somehow.

“You guys should go. Keep me updated — we can do this again on Saturday night or something. I’ll keep all the food in containers and we can heat it up and watch a movie,” he says softly after a minute or so. 

Kevin and Jacob quickly agree, and their voices are heavy with apology when they finally hang up. 

The ham is steaming up a storm on top of Jaehyun’s stove, and he stares at it for a moment before cursing. He’d forgotten to cover it with foil and now it’s probably fucking dry. 

He’s not embarrassed to admit that his eyes sting with frustration.

When the ham is covered and the vegetables are perfectly charred and roasted in their trays, he turns everything off. The apartment is suddenly eerily silent without the whirr of the stove fan or the sound of pork fat sizzling in his oven.

Jaehyun pulls out his phone and clicks on a now familiar chat.

_Hey_

_So I uh kinda got bailed on for  
_ _Christmas Eve dinner  
  
_ _Here’s a photo of the food anyway!  
_ _I think the ham came out well-ish?_

It takes less than a minute for Catnap to begin typing.

 _What!! No way?!?!  
  
_ _Ah I’m so sorry, that’s so terrible :(_

 _The ham looks really really good,  
_ _it’s a shame your friends won’t  
_ _get to try it fresh._

_I’m so sorry :(_

Jaehyun smiles a little at the series of grey text bubbles before setting his phone down. Since the dinner is made, he might as well eat it, he thinks. The plate he constructs looks rather nice, all honey glazed meat and technicolour vegetables, and it cheers a little part of him. 

_Just took a bite  
_ _Your tip w the cloves was great btw  
_ _haha it really adds something!_

His thumbs hover over the keyboard for an indiscriminate amount of time before he sends another follow up.

 _Thank you for helping me with  
_ _Christmas dinner. Even if no one eats  
_ _it but me, I’m really glad I made it  
_ _and met you_

Not a moment later, Catnap replies — 

_I am too :)  
_ _I’m actually alone right now as well haha_

 _Talking to you makes me feel less alone  
_ _Is that a weird thing to say?_

Jaehyun grins, melancholy stuttering in his ribcage and giving way to warmth. He strokes his thumb briefly over his phone screen — terribly, achingly fond.

 _Not even a little_ , he says. And then, because he wants to laugh and enjoy his favourite holiday of the year, he adds —

 _You should play some Christmas music  
_ _I’ll play some too and then it’ll really  
_ _be like we’re together haha_

Immediately, his phone pings.

 _Hahaha sure, I guess I’ll play some for you  
_ _Any requests for the DJ?_

Jaehyun laughs and stabs a brussel sprout with his fork before shoving it whole into his mouth. 

_The one the only  
_ _BigBang’s cover of  
_ _Santa Claus is Coming to Town_

The response he gets is just a fraction too quick. _Done!_ Catnap says. Jaehyun squints his eyes playfully and replies —

 _No way you found that song that fast  
_ _If you’re lying to me, you’ll get coal  
_ _in your stocking you know_

The series of ‘hahaha’s Catnap sends back is at least four lines long and all capitalised.

 _YOU CAUGHT ME hahaha  
_ _Ugh okay okay I’ll find it now. I’ll  
_ _even sing along as penance_

The mental image of a man alone in his apartment somewhere in Seoul scream-singing along to Santa Claus is Coming to Town makes Jaehyun cackle, and now, here with Catnap, the evening doesn’t feel so bad at all. 

Suddenly, however, Jaehyun hears —

He hears Christmas music coming through his front door. He hears Santa Claus is Coming to Town, _specifically_ , coming through his front door, and the slightly off-tune but still pleasant sound of husky warbling along with it. 

It makes every fibre of his being freeze up with wild, _reckless_ hope.

 _WAIT. ARE YOU SINGING RIGHT NOW,_ he texts.

The response comes and there’s no break in the carolling from across the hallway.

_Yes!!!! I lied once, I’ll never do it again!!_

Jaehyun’s thumbs slip over the glass screen with how quickly he types back.

 _Ok ok ok this sounds insane i know  
_ _but pls bear w me  
_ _Stop singing RIGHT NOW_

It takes a second for the message to send - torturously slow! Fateful moments! Is this what it feels like to be in a Shakespearean play? Jaehyun wonders - before it finally processes. 

Santa Claus is Coming to Town continues playing out there but the voice - Juyeon’s voice - stops, and Jaehyun’s stomach does a somersault in his body.

 _I did but if it’s bc you’re assuming I’m butchering it, I’m gonna be really upset,_ Catnap - Juyeon! _Juyeon!_ \- responds merrily. Jaehyun just writes —

 _This is going to sound fucking insane  
_ _but can you step out of your flat and into  
_ _the hallway really quickly?_

He waits with bated breath. The moment drags on, song still playing, food still steaming, until finally, he hears the click of Juyeon’s door. His phone buzzes again.

_I know you’re having a rough night_   
_but how long am I obliged to be at your  
beck and call exactly?_

Jaehyun doesn’t bother responding, just rushes, feet stumbling, to open his front door. Juyeon is standing there, in their frigid hallway in sweats and bare feet, staring at his phone with what Jaehyun can only _objectively_ call an adoring smile.

When his door slams open, the red-haired man startles and looks up. He hastens to apologise, “Sorry, I know this looks weird, I’m not-” spilling over his lips before Jaehyun holds his phone up. 

The screen illuminates Juyeon’s face in a bluish white light and Jaehyun watches giddily as his expression changes from bewildered to focused to bewildered once more as his mouth falls open. Dark eyes, endlessly and impossibly handsome now that Jaehyun knows who they really belong to, meet his in utter disbelief.

“You’re-?” Juyeon croaks. 

Jaehyun nods. “Yeah.”

“And we’ve been-?” Juyeon waggles his phone. “This whole time? It was you?”

Jaehyun can feel his teeth sinking into his bottom lip almost painfully, but it has to be done because he’s _not_ going to smile like a goon at the man who has managed to occupy all of his waking thoughts without a name or a face these past three months. 

“Yeah,” he says instead. “Crazy, right?”

Juyeon nods slowly, tongue in his cheek. They stare at each other for an indefinite time, somehow familiar and strangers all at once. Jaehyun can see the moment when it finally clicks for Juyeon. He sees it in the way rosiness as bright as the raspberries on Catnap’s Celebratory Cheesecake colours Juyeon’s tall cheekbones, in the way his fingers twitch the way they did when he made that first video - ‘Catnap’s Comfort Recipes for a Bad Day’ - for Jaehyun and Jaehyun alone.

Back when Jaehyun was just @fantasticbaby999, a no-name, no-face user who sent him low quality recreations of his high quality recipes.

Juyeon shakes his head like he’s trying to emerge from the clutches of a dream. Sucks in a breath, then rubs at the nape of his neck with golden hands that are so very, awfully lovely. 

“So,” he says, his eyes relentlessly hopeful and warm somehow. “A Fantastic Baby fan, huh?”

Jaehyun's cheeks hurt with how hard he smiles, then. 

He chuckles. “Just a little bit.”

_(Santa Claus is Coming to Town replays automatically on loop, sleigh bells and baritone voices, winter cheer and something like new beginnings.)_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, your comments and kudos mean the world to me.
> 
> Happy holidays again! I hope 2021 is better for all of us, and I am (perhaps blindly) optimistic that it will be. 
> 
> If you want to chat or get updates on my work, come find me on Twitter (link in profile)!
> 
> \- Anon


End file.
